Angie: We may fail to appreciate some of our prosperity because we don't have a handy yardstick that shows how much better off we might be than others. Angie: On the other hand, an upside of our not comparing like that is that we are constantly striving to make the world even better. Stephen Kohn: I was standing on the subway platform in Philadelphia and thinking about my kids' cousins who were staying at their grandmother's house for the weekend.